A law allowing the government to blacklist or banned certain websites from the US is being considered in Washington. There are a lot of sites demanding that this law be thrown out and petitions are linked to sign to stop it.

It's entirely a DNS based blacklist, which would run the risk of providing an impetus for an alternative DNS root. Some form of open dns root authority is the last thing the people pushing this law want to see.

It's entirely a DNS based blacklist, which would run the risk of providing an impetus for an alternative DNS root. Some form of open dns root authority is the last thing the people pushing this law want to see.

It would actually be needed inside the US. That's the conundrum. Someone or some federation of people (a few hundred servers and the talent to run them) creates a simple to use alternate root (for whatever reason) that doesn't have so much of the bullshit of the current system, actively gives squatters, spammers, scammers, and censors the finger, and so on. "If you're not a geek, just run this." and such.

I'm personally far more concerned about net neutrality. This blocklist has a solution that could radically improve the Internet as a whole. A breakdown in network neutrality, not so much.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a controversial bill that would allow the government to seek court orders to shut down websites offering materials believed to infringe copyright.

The committee's 19-0 vote Thursday to send the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act to the full Senate earned it praise from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The bill would allow the Department of Justice to seek court orders requiring U.S. domain-name registrars to shut down domestic websites suspected of hosting infringing materials. The bill would also allow the DOJ, through a court order, to order U.S. Internet service providers to redirect customer traffic away from infringing websites not based in the U.S.

This is just a government power grab. Their real targets are WikiLeaks, Drudge, and anything else that reports the news the corporate elite don't want us to read. "Copyright" and "intellectual property protection" are just Trojan horses.

This is just a government power grab. Their real targets are WikiLeaks, Drudge, and anything else that reports the news the corporate elite don't want us to read. "Copyright" and "intellectual property protection" are just Trojan horses.

Wikileaks, maybe, but this is entirely targeted at sites outside of the US - people they would arrest.

I wonder if they (Wikileaks) would scream loud enough that educators might look into it. Citation of materials that are copyrighted might be the next rung.

I'm not saying it WILL but there is a lot of worry about using refrences already. (I know Rupert Murdoc wants a dime for every line of his print anyone reads online and there are a lot of publishers who would like to do that too)

I find this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11773574 extremely worrying. Net neutrality is one thing, but what's happening over here is downright frightening. I'll let you read the article for yourselves and draw your own opinions...My opinion...very very bad!

I'm really curious about this news item and I'm terribly uninformed. I know there's shitloads of news sources on the web, but I'm more interested in interpretations or analysis from better-informed people, and I'm sure there's lots of those people around here.

My area of interest, more specifically: is there a reasonable chance that this could put a major dent in the widespread accessibility of file-sharing of copyrighted works?

Also, I'm astounded by how little activity there's been so far in this very thread. Does that mean the bill is totally unimportant and won't have much effect? Or does it just mean people around here don't feel like talking about it much, for whatever reason?

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It's entirely a DNS based blacklist, which would run the risk of providing an impetus for an alternative DNS root.

I'm a tech-know-nothing, but I take this statement to mean that as soon as such a blacklist took effect and began limiting widespread access to file-sharing sources on the net, users would quickly develop a technological workaround allowing them to continue file-sharing, by bypassing the blacklist-affected parts of the net. Is that roughly right? If so, how likely and how rapid would such a workaround be? Could file-sharing on the internet be significantly crippled, even temporarily, by this bill taking effect? Any insights would be much appreciated. Thanks!

P.S. Why I care, personally, just if you're wondering about my biases: I'm one of those people who believes the internet is in the process of destroying the commercial impetus for producing popular art and popular entertainment ... For example, to me, it appears that there is no such thing as popular music anymore, at least in the sense that far, far fewer artists are able to make a full-time living from their music, and the reason for that can be traced back to internet file-sharing and its effects on big business. And, it looks to me like file-sharing will eventually have similar catastrophic effects on other types of art or entertainment: movies, TV shows, games, anything copyrighted and shareable, basically. All just my opinions, YMMV.

It is certainly primarily targeted at torrent sites, and will probably have some effect on them, but it's hard to say how much. People can always use custom DNS servers that don't obey the blacklist rules, which, again, leads to the risk of an alternate route developing. The bill has no provision to declare a given address range to be non-routable, so it does nothing to block access to someone who uses an alternate means of reaching the filesharing site in question.

Popular music is a bit of a different topic, but there are multiple factors involved with that. Excessive duration of copyright, industry groups creating artificial barriers to entry, and so on. Reducing copyright duration to something sane, like 30 or even 60 years, would make it a lot easier for people to sample and create their own music. The Internet is certainly a player, but it's also clear that people will pay for digital content, it just needs to be easy to do so.

This should remove any lingering doubts about the intent of the blacklist law. This is about fascism, plain and simple. The U.S. Government anointing itself Emperor and Maximum Leader of the World.

I think the other nations of the world should get together and build as much of the root infrastructure of the Internet outside of the United States as possible. Custodial powers over the Internet should be removed from the United States.

This was done with a court order, and had nothing to do with the law mentioned in this thread.

If each one of the sites was US based, or the registrars were, then going through ICANN is not going to create that much of a fuss. If they weren't, however, that may cause a ruckus.

The sites mentioned in the article were shut down with no court order. Strictly because the government didn't like them.

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"The owner of Torrent-Finder.net complained that his search engine was shut down without so much as a court order or prior complaint.

“My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the owner said, without being identified in the Torrentfreak article.

Earlier this week, Homeland Security shut down a popular hip-hop music site, RapGodfathers.com, which had nearly 150,000 members. The site claims it is compliant with copyright laws, as it doesn't host copyrighted materials. However, its users posted links to file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Megaupload, where copyrighted material may have been shared.

These domains are now "the property of Homeland Security," writes Gareth Halfacree at Thinq.co.uk, "And there's no indication that their original owners will ever be able to get them back."

America is supposed to be under the Constitution, not the U.N. Charter. Our rights are not to be taken away merely because the powermongers in D.C. or the corporate elite find them to be nettlesome or inconvenient. "Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The sites mentioned in the article were shut down with no court order. Strictly because the government didn't like them.

From the source of the article you linked to - the site I linked to:

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Update: A spokeswoman for ICE confirmed the seizures in the following statement. “ICE office of Homeland Security Investigations executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names. As this is an ongoing investigation, there are no additional details available at this time.”

Well, that makes me feel a little better. Though I'll be looking for a source other than ICE to confirm court orders were duly used. ICE is the same agency that practices indefinite detention without trial, so their credibility with me on matters like this is rather scant.